Sunday, July 9, 2017

7/13/17 -- SG at 1.007. Tart, a little spice, a little fruity hop aroma. Racked just under 3 gallons into a small carboy with 1 oz HBC-438 (Ron Mexico). Added 4.5lbs frozen plums and a small handful of oak cubes (Med+ American) to the remainder. Likely adds 0.006 to SG - watching for refermentation.
7/9/17 -- SG at 1.010.

Someone brought plums to work from their tree. I asked for more, he delivered - like, easily 20 pounds, maybe not the 30 he claimed. Even so, that's a lot. Building a bigger kettle soured beer (remember this one)

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Bottled 5/28 - very tasty. That Vinnie guy might be on to something...

My last few batches of IPA have tasted muddy to me; too much going on in the specialty malts, like drinking hoppy beers in the Midwest. To re-calibrate my recipe sense, I went back to the Vinnie-approved Blind Pig and Pliny the Elder recipes (AHA versions) and read through them again. Brewing a Pliny clone was tempting, but that much DIPA is not needed around here these days. Ultimately, decided on (very nearly) the malt bill of Blind Pig with the hop profile of Pliny the Younger, albeit dialed back a bit.

Batch #98

Best Coast IPA
5 gallons

10 lbs California 2-row malt
6 oz Carapils
6 oz Crystal 40L

3/4 oz Columbus 14.9%aa (90 min)

1/2 oz Columbus 14.9%aa (45 min)

3/4 oz Simcoe 13%aa (30 min)

1-1/4 oz Simcoe (0 min)

1 oz Centennial (0 min)

1 oz each Columbus, Centennial, Simcoe (dry, 10 days)

Water: RO with 8g CaSO4, 3g CaCl2, 2.5g MgSO4, 1g NaCl

Yeast: 1.5L starter of WLP001 California Ale Yeast

OG: 1.059

FG: 1.007

ABV: 6.8%

IBU: ~90-100

Single infusion mash at 150-152F for 1 hour. Fly sparge to collect 8 gallons wort. Kettle size meant starting the boil with 7 gallons, adding another 1/2 gal at the 60min mark for 7.5 in kettle, 5.5 in carboy. Boil 1.5 hours, chill. I let it settle a bit before racking to the carboy and pitching yeast.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

2/25 - and bottled. Small batch, but looking forward to it. Big citrus and candied strawberry aroma after 6 days dry hopping. Still not as red as I want...

This one was good, but not quite the right color, so I brought out an old recipe with a deep red malt bill. Mixed some good base malt (MO) with mediocre (CA 2-row), subbed in some rye, and turned up the hops.

OG: 1.075 (might have read high)
FG: 1.020 **
ABV: 7.2-7.5%, depending on how much you believe the OG.

IBU: ~70

Single infusion mash at 154F for 1 hour. Fly sparge to collect 7 gallons wort. Boil 1 hour, chill. **which makes me really nervous, but running the numbers it seems okay. Next time I'll run a test batch in parallel for target FG. The original goal was 1.066 -> 1.016, so I'm only a slightly under-attenuated if at all based on the high OG. Right? No grenades.